DUBAI: Etihad Airways, Abu Dhabi’s state carrier, on Tuesday signed an agreement with technology firm Astra Tech that allows customers to make flight bookings using artificial intelligence within chat app BOTIM, Astra Tech said.
BOTIM, which is mostly known in the region as a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) app, relaunched as what it calls an “ultra app” on Monday.
One of the services it provides is a generative pre-trained transformer (GPT), AI technology that rose sharply in popularity following the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November.
Under the deal between Etihad and Astra Tech, the airline’s clients will be able to book flights just by typing in the basic details of the service they require, with the technology then completing the booking itself.
Astra Tech has said its GPT is the first that works in the Arabic language. It is also available in English.
“Through the BOTIM GPT module developed by Astra Tech, flights and other travel-related services are integrated into the Botim app, offering a convenient and innovative way for customers to book Etihad flights,” Astra Tech said.
Astra Tech bought BOTIM last year for an undisclosed sum from about 12 investors, Astra Tech founder and BOTIM CEO Abdallah Abu Sheikh told Reuters last month.
BOTIM is one of the top three digital remittance providers in the UAE, one of the other services the app provides, Sheikh said.
Sheikh is the main shareholder of Astra Tech. He said one of its bigger investors is Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence firm G42, which is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, a brother of the country’s president and the UAE’s national security adviser, who oversees a sprawling business empire.
“We also had a few more strategic investors that we’ll be announcing hopefully soon,” Sheikh said, adding they include “strategic” institutions from the region as well as one or two international institutions.
BOTIM, Etihad Airways sign deal to allow bookings using AI within chat app
https://arab.news/57sdj
BOTIM, Etihad Airways sign deal to allow bookings using AI within chat app
- Clients will be able to book flights just by typing in the basic details of the service they require
- New feature is part of BOTIM’s “ultra app” plan
Gabon cuts off Facebook, TikTok after protests
Libreville, Gabon: Facebook and TikTok were no longer available in Gabon on Wednesday, AFP journalists said, after regulators said they were suspending social media over national security concerns amid anti-government protests.
Gabon’s media regulator on Tuesday announced the suspension of social media platforms until further notice, saying that online posts were stoking conflict.
The High Authority for Communication imposed “the immediate suspension of social media platforms in Gabon,” its spokesman Jean-Claude Mendome said in a televised statement.
He said “inappropriate, defamatory, hateful, and insulting content” was undermining “human dignity, public morality, the honor of citizens, social cohesion, the stability of the Republic’s institutions, and national security.”
The communications body spokesman also cited the “spread of false information,” “cyberbullying” and “unauthorized disclosure of personal data” as reasons for the decision.
“These actions are likely, in the case of Gabon, to generate social conflict, destabilize the institutions of the Republic, and seriously jeopardize national unity, democratic progress, and achievements,” he added.
The regulator did not specify any social media platforms that would be included in the ban.
But it said “freedom of expression, including freedom of comment and criticism,” remained “a fundamental right enshrined in Gabon.”
‘Climate of fear’
Less than a year after being elected, Gabonese President Brice Oligui Nguema has faced his first wave of social unrest, with teachers on strike and other civil servants threatening to do the same.
School teachers began striking over pay and conditions in December and protests over similar demands have since spread to other public sectors — health, higher education and broadcasting.
Opposition leader Alain-Claude Billie-By-Nze said the social media crackdown imposed “a climate of fear and repression” in the central African state.
In an overnight post on Facebook, he called on civil groups “and all Gabonese people dedicated to freedom to mobilize and block this liberty-destroying excess.”
The last action by teachers took place in 2022 under then president Ali Bongo, whose family ruled the small central African country for 55 years.
Oligui overthrew Bongo in a military coup a few months later and acted on some of the teachers’ concerns, buying calm during the two-year transition period that led up to the presidential election in April 2025.
He won that election with a huge majority, generating high expectations with promises that he would turn the country around and improve living standards.
A wage freeze decided a decade ago by the Bongo government has left teachers struggling to cope with the rising cost of living.
Authorities last month arrested two prominent figures from the teachers’ protest movement, leaving teachers and parents afraid to discuss the strike in public.
